Keller turns his back, then hears two shots. When he turns back again there are two neat bullet holes in Diego’s forehead. El Jefe de los Jefes, La Barba, is dead.

He already looks like an anachronism—the long hair and beard, the tall frame, once heavily muscled, now as thin as some crippled beast starved over the course of a long hard winter.

Diego Tapia was from another time, and that time is gone.

Orduña walks out.

Keller squats down and pulls off Diego’s boots.

He removes the monitoring device from the left boot and slips it into his pocket.

What happens next shouldn’t have.

Inside the apartment, the FES discipline breaks down. Whether out of revenge, or adrenaline, or the sheer heady relief of surviving, some of the commandos yank Diego’s black jeans down around his ankles and pull his shirt up to his neck, displaying his wounds. Then they take some money they find in the apartment—peso and dollar bills—and toss it on the body, then take photos and videos and start texting and tweeting.

By the time Orduña, furious, gets up there to stop it, the damage is done.

The images are out on the Net.

—

Keller walks away from Lomas de Selva to find “María Fernanda.”

Crazy Eddie waits in the Zócalo in the shadow of the fresno trees. He looks cool and fresh in a plum polo shirt, white jeans, and loafers.

Narco Polo, Keller thinks. He walks up to Eddie and says, “He’s dead.”

Eddie nods. “Diego wasn’t a bad guy, you know? The drugs fucked him up. And the Skinny Lady. I just couldn’t go down with the ship.”

“You have a chip with me,” Keller says. “Why don’t you cash it in now? I can bring you in safe.”

“ ‘Let that pickup man haul in’?”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Old song about rodeo,” Eddie says. “No, I ain’t done with my ride yet.”

“You’re on the list, Eddie.”

Actually, he just moved up one slot.

“Right,” Eddie says. “Because that’s what you guys do now, isn’t it? You just kill people.”

“Doesn’t have to end that way,” Keller says.

“The Zetas,” Eddie says, “that’s who you should be going after. They’re pure evil, man.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

“Fuck you.” Eddie looks around the Zócalo for a second and then says, “You know? Someone’s always going to be selling this shit. It might as well be someone who doesn’t kill women and kids. If someone’s going to do it, you guys might as well let someone like me do it.”

Keller lets him walk away. Could have taken him right there, but that wasn’t part of their deal.

—

Adán looks at the photos of his old primo’s bullet-shredded corpse and tells Nacho, “You’d think I’d be happier.”

“We were all friends once.”

“I think about Chele and the kids.”

Nacho has no answer for that. He’s fond of Chele, they all are.

“Drive home the message,” Adán says.

They talk business for a few more minutes—Martín Tapia might keep up the fight, but will be at most an annoyance. Eddie Ruiz won’t pick up Diego’s fallen banner. He’ll start his own organization, and as long as he stays out of the war, Adán is willing to let him be. Payback for Sal can wait until the war is over.

When Nacho leaves, Adán goes into his bedroom. Eva is already asleep, or pretending to be.

It’s odd, Adán thinks, how life gets lonelier.

The next morning, two bound and beaten bodies of Tapia sicarios are found hanging by the necks from a bridge in Culiacán with a banner that reads THIS TERRITORY ALREADY HAS AN OWNER—ADÁN BARRERA.

—

Looking at the photos of Diego’s body, Heriberto Ochoa, the head of the Zetas, is furious.

And concerned.

The government has finally figured out that to fight special forces you need special forces. No one saw it coming, and no one—not Diego or Martín, not even Barrera, managed to find out about this new unit, much less infiltrate or suborn it.

And this FES is very, very good.

A direct challenge to the Zetas.

As a special-ops vet, Ochoa recognizes the Lomas de Selva raid for what it was—not a law enforcement operation, but an execution.

Well done.

But this, he thinks, looking at the photos that are all over the Internet, this was unnecessary. To strip Diego and mock him, boast about murdering him, and then post pictures of it on the Net?

The FES needs to be taught a lesson.

Taught not to behave this way.

Taught that we’re not going to be intimidated.

Taught that we’re the ones who intimidate.

He gives the orders.

—

Keller stands to the side as six FES, in their cammie fatigues, with blue vests marked MARINA in white, carry the flag-draped casket of Lieutenant Angulo Córdova from the funeral home in his small hometown of Ojinaga, on the south bank of the Río Bravo in Chihuahua.

Trumpets and drums from a military band play as the casket is carried through the crowd of family, friends, and townspeople, who quietly applaud as the casket passes by. Middle-class or poor, Keller notices, they’re dressed in their best clothes—the women in plain dresses, the men in jeans and white shirts. They’re subdued and respectful, some weeping quietly, and Keller is struck again by the difference between Americans and Mexicans. Americans take their strength in victories, Mexicans’ strength is in their ability to suffer loss.

One of the people is Marisol.

She and Keller look across the coffin at each other.

He can see her eyes beneath her black veil.

Keller falls in beside Orduña as the crowd follows the hearse to the little cemetery at the edge of town.

An honor guard of sailors in dress white marches behind the hearse, the band plays a dirge.

At least there’s no wife and kids, Keller thinks. But there is a grieving mother, supported, literally, by Córdova’s sister, brother, and aunt.

Marisol walks behind them.

The Christmas decorations on the street give the funeral parade an added poignancy.

Orduña gives a speech at the gravesite. Talks about Córdova’s character, his courage, his service, his sacrifice. When he’s done, an old man in a tattered vest and a knit cap raises his hand and asks to speak.

“I’ve known this man since he was a boy,” the viejo says. “He was a good boy and a good man. He sent money home to his family. He died for our Republic. Our Republic. We can’t give away our Republic to drug dealers and criminals. I’m sorry this man is dead, but he died fighting these animals. That is all I have to say.”

Orduña thanks him and then signals the honor guard. The soldiers raise their M-16s to their shoulders and fire three salutes into the air. Then, at Orduña’s orders, they attach bayonets and stand at guard. Two marines take the Mexican flag from the casket, fold it, and hand it to Córdova’s mother.

A trumpet plays as the casket is lowered into the ground.

After the ceremony, Keller is unsure whether or not he should approach Marisol. It’s awkward—they haven’t spoken in a long time.

She solves his dilemma by coming up to him. “It’s good to see you.”

“You, too,” he says. “I take it you know the family.”

“Since I was a little girl,” she says. “I’m their doctor now. What’s your connection?”

Keller hesitates before he answers and then says, “I worked with him.”

“Oh.” The obvious question is right there in her eyes, but Keller doesn’t answer it. Luckily for him, Córdova’s younger sister walks up. “My mother would like you to come back to the house. Both of you.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” Keller says.

There was a wake at the house the night before the funeral, when friends came to view the body and pay their respects. The time after the burial is usually reserved for the family.

“Please come,” the sister says.

The house is modest, clean, and well kept. The aunts have laid food out on a table and Córdova’s mother sits in an upholstered chair in the corner. Irma Córdova is a handsome woman, quietly elegant in a black tunic over black pants. Her iron-gray hair is pulled back into a bun. Keller can see where Angulo got his strength. She gestures Keller to come over.